Barco® Uniforms has prevented 16.8 million plastic bottles from polluting the environment since incorporating plastic bottles into the fabric of the Barco One and Skechers by Barco scrub collections.
Each Barco One garment incorporates 5 recycled plastic bottles and the brand has recycled 7.5 million bottles, while each Skechers garment is made from 7 recycled plastic bottles, resulting in 9.3 million recycled bottles to date.
“We are only starting to understand the devastating consequences of our global dependence on plastic and the pollution epidemic,” said David Murphy, president and chief executive officer of Barco Uniforms. “Barco is proud to have taken concrete steps to keep plastic bottles out of landfills and the waste stream. Barco One and Skechers collections are the first lines of medical scrubs to incorporate a sustainable element into their fabric, and we are eager to see an increase in the number of bottles that we incorporate into our fabric technology in the years to come.”
To create the sustainable fabric, Barco relies on a RPET process. First, the bottles are cleaned and then shredded into pellets. From there, the pellets are crushed and melted, and the melted plastic is spun into thread which is woven with polyester.
Published in the September 2019 Edition